1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to telescope control systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods for aligning and orienting telescopes.
2. Description of the Related Art
The continuing evolution of low cost, high performance telescopes has decreased the complexity of finding and tracking stars, planets and other celestial objects. Thus, the popularity of amateur astronomy has increased. Some conventional telescope systems are easy to use and are capable of finding and tracking stars and other celestial bodies once they are initially oriented with the celestial sphere. However, the initial orientation is generally manual and conventional routines that align a telescope with a desired celestial object generally include user intervention, such as manually centering the telescope on an alignment star.
Often, to view or otherwise image celestial objects, measurements obtained in a telescope's coordinate system (expressed, for example, in altitude and azimuth coordinates) are converted into the celestial coordinate system (expressed, for example, in right ascension and declination coordinates) and vice versa. Such conversions depend at least in part on the initial orientation of the telescope. For example, the initial orientation of the telescope may be set by manually pointing the telescope in a predetermined direction, such as north or south, and leveling the telescope such that it points toward the horizon. When a telescope processing system knows the current date, the current time, the location of the telescope with respect to the earth, the right ascension of a desired celestial object, and the declination of the desired celestial object, the processing system can convert the location of the desired celestial object from the celestial coordinate system to the telescope's coordinate system to indicate a change in altitude and azimuth that will point the telescope away from its current orientation toward the desired celestial object. Such orientation and alignment of the telescope can be complicated to a less experienced user.
To attempt to remedy difficulties experienced in aligning a telescope, manufacturers have suggested aligning telescopes with the celestial sphere by randomly scanning the sky in search of bright stars. For example, when a telescope finds a first bright star, recognized through for example, user interaction, the telescope monitors changes in altitude and azimuth as it scans for additional bright stars. Upon receiving an indication of alignment with an additional bright star, the telescope compares its respective altitude and azimuth measurement changes to determine an angle between the now located two bright stars. After the telescope has recorded multiple angles between randomly found bright stars, the collection of determined angles may produce shapes that the telescope may recognize from, for example, data of known shapes between known bright stars. Once the shape is recognized, manufacturers believe the telescope will have sufficient information to align itself with the sky. However, because of many difficulties, including random searching with limited fields of view and potentially large comparison data sizes, such shape-oriented alignment systems may be extraordinarily slow and potentially inaccurate.